October 27, 1995

Two teen-agers from Montclair pleaded guilty yesterday to charges of attempted murder and carjacking in the shooting of Sheila Gillespie, 65, in the driveway of her home in West Caldwell last March. Mrs. Gillespie lost sight in one eye as a result of the attack, after which the assailants fled in her car. The teen-agers, Hassan Cousins, 18, and Earl Bethel, 19, could each receive prison terms of more than 30 years when they are sentenced Nov. 9, said the Essex County Prosecutor, Clifford J. Minor.

At this month's meeting of the township committee, Mayor Jean Zipser showed up and Committeeman Harold Van Campen did not. So the meeting was canceled; there was no quorum. "This is what happens," sighed Ms. Zipser, who, with Mr. Van Campen, governs this isolated and rural municipality of six residents, the smallest in New Jersey. "We can't continue like this."

Within days of returning from the United States, President Boris N. Yeltsin was taken to the hospital today with his second painful episode of heart disease in the last three months. Mr. Yeltsin, who is 64, was said by Kremlin officials to have suffered a second attack of "myocardial ischemia," a shortage of oxygenated blood to the heart. Normally caused by a buildup of plaque blocking an artery, or atherosclerosis, ischemia can lead to a heart attack or stroke.

Governments have made plenty of outrageous requests of their citizens, but few are as remarkable as what the Japanese Government secretly requested of tens of thousands of Japanese women 50 years ago. Six days after Japan's surrender in World War II, the Cabinet met in the Prime Minister's residence to discuss "urgent measures" that had nothing to do with the atomic bombings or the millions of homeless people or similar national crises. Instead, the Cabinet struggled with how to sate the libido of American "sex-starved soldiers."

Campaign Advice for Powell Gen. Colin Powell has been sounding out conservatives and financiers about his prospects as a Presidential candidate and the personal rigors of a campaign. Page A22. Half-Empty Glass for Wall St. Company earnings have been uexpectedly strong, but stocks have tumbled. Some investors are worried that while earnings are up, the pace of growth is slowing. Page D1. Wide U.S.Income Gap Seen A new study shows that the income gap between rich and poor was wider in the United States during the 1980's than in any other large industrialized country. Page D2.

New Jersey has lifted water-use restrictions, but in New York officials warned that reservoirs were still down 15 percent. Page B1.

House Passes Budget Bill To Balance the Budget The House approved the foundation of the Republican revolution: a broad-ranging bill that would balance the budget in seven years, cut some taxes and diminish the Federal Government's role.

The Justice Department said today that it had begun a significant investigation into possible anticompetitive pricing practices in the newsprint industry. A spokeswoman at the Justice Department, Gina Talamona, announced the antitrust investigation but declined to identify which companies or individuals had been under scrutiny, or to say how far the investigation had progressed or when it could lead to possible legal action.

The Kwoks had just sat down to a meal of steamed fish and stir-fried pork. With a roar, the floor shuddered and the chopsticks in Kwok Tai-ming's hands clattered against his rice bowl. Overhead, seemingly skimming the roof of the tiny seventh-floor apartment, a Cathay Pacific 747 screamed past, banking amid apartment blocks toward Hong Kong's airport at Kai Tak. And then another, and another, every two or three minutes. By mid-1998 those jets will be stilled. Kai Tak is Asia's third-busiest airport, hunkered down in the heart of the city -- the Kwoks and more than 350,000 people live in its landing path -- and stretched far beyond its capacity. So Hong Kong, like many fast-growing Asian cities, is building a new one -- and in the process giving a resounding vote of confidence in Hong Kong's future.

After decades of conflict between New York City and the upstate communities that supply its water, the city has agreed to spend $1 billion during the next five years to preserve the quality of its water while spurring economic growth in the towns and villages around its 19 reservoirs. The deal, brokered by Gov. George E. Pataki and expected to be announced next week, is an alternative to a far more expensive option: building a filtration plant, costing from $4 billion to $8 billion, to keep the water clean.

YEARS before he went Hollywood, directing Harrison Ford as the ultimate C.I.A. agent in "Patriot Games," Phillip Noyce made one of the smartest and most Australian movies of the past few decades. "Newsfront" (1978) begins with documentary film of Chico Marx, in Sydney in 1948, leading a makeshift chorus of Australian military men. "How about a little song?" Chico asks. "It's something about a bum walking along the road and he meets some dame named Matilda." The soldiers laugh before they launch into "Waltzing Matilda," a decidedly unromantic song about a hobo who kills himself rather than go to jail as a sheep thief. Australians know Matilda is not a woman; it's a knapsack. Combining documentary film with the fictional drama of rival newsreel companies in the 1940's and 50's, "Newsfront" displays a savvy sense of how Australia's image -- simple and hearty on the surface, infinitely complicated beneath -- plays to the world and at home. On the skids, the chairman of one news company calls for more stories about the outback, kangaroos and koalas. He is a cosmopolitan businessman, hoping to give ordinary Australians what he imagines they'll eat right up.

The Giuliani administration formally offered yesterday to turn over three public hospitals to private health care organizations. It also strongly suggested that the city would try to release the new operators from the terms of current labor contracts. In two detailed plans, one for Coney Island Hospital and one for both Elmhurst Hospital Center and Queens Hospital Center in Jamaica, the city is offering to sign long-term leases with nonprofit companies that meet the city's requirements for delivering health care to the poor.